


a private performance

by aes3plex



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aes3plex/pseuds/aes3plex
Summary: The mate of the watch is whistling.
Relationships: Lt Henry T.D. Le Vesconte & Charles Frederick des Voeux
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: 12 Days of Carnivale ~ 2018





	a private performance

**Author's Note:**

> This was written & posted on Tumblr for 12 Days of Carnivale 2018.

The mate of the watch is whistling.

Gore tells him as much when he comes in, red-cheeked and laughing, from the deck; whether he means it as an instruction to Henry or only a note of interest is impossible to say. Not for the first time Henry thinks Gore should have been in _Terror_ : in _Erebus,_ slack then stiff, this can only require a reprimand. Henry marks his place in his reading—an old copy of the _Gentleman’s_ —and rises to his duty.

On deck the air has that lenslike quality which comes of sudden barometrical dips. The men are mostly quiet, about their business; it is a washing day and they are hanging shirts in the rigging to freeze. In his father’s time they would have been queueing one another’s hair: now, shorn and shaven, they light their pipes together, talking softly.

Even in the quiet it takes him a moment to catch the whistled melody, drifting forward from the quarter, so foreign and familiar for a moment that it is like a spell: _Le Christ est né, Marie appelle,_ he hears, in his sister’s clear voice. It ties itself like a knot in his memory, below all sense: and with it comes a shiver of stone and candleflame, the biting cold. Mass: cold supper: frost on everything, glittering in the lamplight. 

Halfway up the ladder he must pause before going on, but by the time his heels click on the quarterdeck his face is a blank again.

“Mr. Des Voeux,” he says, though suddenly it feels odd in his mouth, “Is this a bricklayer’s yard?”

Des Voeux jumps: turns, looking guilty. “No, sir,” he says. “Apologies, sir.”

Henry joins him at the rail. Across the ice the cold light spills like liquid. James is below, with the captain; there is no one to hear them.

“Do you know the words,” Henry says, after a moment. Des Voeux looks at him out of the corner of his eye: unsure as to what is wanted of him, no doubt. After a moment he swallows.

“No, sir,” he says. “My great-aunt used to sing it. But it was lost on me, I’m afraid.” A shrug of the shoulder. “My father wouldn’t have it spoken in the house, after the war.”

Henry, against himself, hums a note. Picks it up, and his voice is rough: how long since he sang?

_Un flambeau, Jeanette, Isabelle_. The vowels not quite right: even now he chooses the true French which might pass for a flourish of education over his own Jèrriais.

“Well,” Henry says, breaking off. “Your voice is better, I’m sure.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Des Voeux. He looks uncertain, like he means to say something else. But he doesn’t: just glances out along the waist of the ship, towards the motionless sprit. La sprêde, Henry thinks, following his look. L’êtai, la vaile. It hasn’t gone from him yet.

“I could teach you,” he says.

Des Voeux might laugh but he doesn’t: just tilts his head. “I would like that,” he says, “sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> >>with thanks to this [Jèrriais-English dictionary](https://www.freelang.net/online/jerriais.php?lg=gb) and apologies to any native speakers (correct me, by all means). i apologize too for “Jeanette, Isabelle”: my knowledge of nineteenth c French carols is limited; it was that or “Çà, bergers”, which seemed too on the nose.


End file.
